Candidates disagree with White House’s minimum wage

EDMOND — Gubernatorial candidate Joe Dorman, D-Rush Springs, said the state needs to have serious growth in high-paying living wage jobs that will provide for Oklahomans.

EDMOND — Gubernatorial candidate Joe Dorman, D-Rush Springs, said the state needs to have serious growth in high-paying living wage jobs that will provide for Oklahomans.

Dorman cautioned that while Oklahoma’s jobless rate improved in June, the state’s rankings for the well-being of children has dropped from 36th to 39th place, for one of the largest declines in the U.S., according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Project.

The unemployment rate in June dropped to 4.5 percent, down a percentage point from 4.6 percent in May, according to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, Gov. Mary Fallin said this week.

The state’s unemployment rate was more than 7 percent when Fallin was elected during the brink of the Great Depression. Alex Weintz, communications director for Fallin, pointed out that per capita income in Oklahoma was second in the nation from 2011 to 2013.

The non partisan Congressional Budget office reported in February that raising the minimum wage could kill a half-million jobs in the United States.

According to The Washington Times, CBO analysts reported, "Once the other changes in income were taken into account, families whose income would be below six times the poverty threshold under current law would see a small increase in income, on net, and families whose income would be higher under current law would see reductions in income, on net."

President Barack Obama in February signed an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour.

Weintz said the governor believes tax cuts have enabled families to keep more of their money.

No one is talking about the under-employment rate of families working minimum wage jobs, Dorman said.

"It’s all fine and good when you have fast-food jobs that don’t cover the bills and that counts toward your unemployment rate."

Oklahoma’s minimum wage reflects the federal minimum wage set at $7.25 an hour, a standard set in 2009.

Fallin signed legislation this year to prohibit municipalities from raising their local minimum wage above $7.25 an hour.

"If the minimum wage goes up to $15 in Oklahoma City, all of the sudden you would drive retail, business, service industry locations outside of the city limits and that would be detrimental to the economy, consumers and to businesses," Weintz said.

Fallin has said that she opposes raising the minimum wage in Oklahoma because it would stifle job growth for small business and lay off workers. A lot of people earning the $7.25 minimum wage are part-time workers and many of them are students, Weintz said.

"We believe raising the minimum wage is not a good way to address poverty," Weintz said. "A lot of people earning the minimum wage are actually people living with their parents or other people who are employed full time, and in many cases they are middle class families. So it’s not a good tool to reduce poverty."

Dorman said he does not necessarily support the proposed $10.10 an hour minimum federal minimum wage that is being discussed by Congress.

"I think we need to have a living wage in Oklahoma that is reflective of our economy," Dorman said.

About 102,300 jobs have been added in Oklahoma since Fallin took office in January 2011, according to her office.

The cost of living in the national economy tends to be higher in some other states, Dorman said.

So a minimum wage increase should be tied to economic gains so that families can pay their bills and afford to care for their children, Dorman said.

Independent candidates for governor include Richard Prawdzienski of Edmond, Joe Sills of Oklahoma City and Kimberly Willis of Oklahoma City.

Prawdzienski said he is against raising the minimum wage from $7.25 because he believes in a free-market economy. Increasing the minimum wage could cause business not to hire fast-food employees, Prawdzienski said. Rather, business would have an incentive to make making fast food an entirely automated process, Prawdzienski said.

"Prices would go up and what a good business man would do would be to say, ‘I need to cut my expenses.’"

Sills said he would like to see the minimum wage at least reflect the rate of inflation since 2009. The price of eggs has increased by a robust 23 percent in five years, he said.

"There’s no evidence that the minimum wage will be a direct cost of the price going up. The prices are going to rise no matter what."

The Edmond Sun attempted to speak to Willis, but was unable to contact her before press time.